Pages

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

Goals, the '17 Edition

Can I tell you a little love story? Once upon a time, there was a wandering, chronically-tardy, vaguely-inspired, sporadically-passionate, type-B girl who used lots of adjectives energy to do very little. She liked to claim a fondness for her laid-back approach to life, but in the back of her mind she was discouraged by her constantly jumbled mind and merry-go-round relationship with productivity. At the precipice of adulthood, and the verge of jumping into a lifelong cycle of "two steps forward, one step back," fate stepped in. A favorite author of hers wrote a book, "Start," which focused on goals...specifically, on how you should start them. Now, being as Type-B as she is, she didn't actually read the whole book, but she was fortunate enough to fall into an online community with a number of people who did. She was inspired and touched by the way they came together and encouraged each other to move forward with their goals. She gleaned helpful tips and practices to put into place in order to achieve her goals. She formed a few goals herself, and, for the first time in her life, even met one or two. And thus, a love of goal-setting was born.

I mean, let's be honest. I'm still type-B, and I still do a quite a bit of merry-go-rounding, and I still haven't finished the book five years later. So that's why it's a love story, and not a rags-to-riches kind of thing...I'm the same person. However, I can say that I've made intentional forward motion! Actual things that I meant to accomplish were accomplished! Do you know how big a deal that is?! Most of my forward motion in the past, if there was any, was accidental at best. Now, I'm a goal-lover! I am sooooo pleased that I'm not just sort of pin-balling around the world of productivity anymore. Now I'm kind of like...a cue ball. Moving in a purposeful direction, and possibly even hitting my mark in such a way that a few balls land in the pocket. I know that's a lot of game-riddled analogy to be throwing around, but I'm happy. All that to say, if you're intimidated by/anxious about forming and setting goals, you can't be worse than I was, and there's hope. Give it a shot!

One of my biggest takeaways from Acuff has been that goals can start whenever; waiting til the New Year or Monday isn't necessary or helpful. I wrote about that in my goals post last year, and I still find a lot of freedom in it. In fact, I intentionally delayed my goal-setting this year so that I could have time to think about them. I didn't want to get caught up in the, let's say "trendiness," of New Year's resolutions, so I thought I'd give it til the end of the month to really consider what I wanted to commit to and work toward. And that leaves us here. (This post was supposed to go out yesterday...but the Hig kids are sick. So sick. It's like house arrest. Rough.)

So, without further ado, these are the goals I've concluded on for 2017:

So that's the gist, that's the list. I didn't figure they required excruciating detail, but if you have any questions about any of my goals, please ask! One of the reasons I post these publicly is for accountability. (Another is because if I wrote them on my phone or a piece of paper, they'd be lost before the end of the year. Truth.)

Looking at them all typed out...I kind of wonder if I'm over-stepping my abilities. Think so? You don't have to answer that. But do answer this: Did you set goals in January? Are you keeping up with them? Did you meet your goals from last year? Want to be accountabilibuddies? SO many questions!